To Seek Sanctuary
by NotWeird
Summary: The last thing anyone expects to find on their front steps at six in the morning is their former Headmaster, now homeless and amnesiac... especially when he was declared dead a year ago at the Fall of Beacon. Sadly, that's just the way her life has been going lately. [Ozpin Lives AU]
1. Chapter 1

Lumi yanked on a cotton robe as she stomped towards the door, all thoughts of a relaxing morning thoroughly squashed. Who the hell was knocking at half past six? Who the hell was even awake at six AM?! If Rue's alarm clock hadn't gone off, followed shortly by the door bell, she sure as fuck wouldn't be up!

A peek through the peephole revealed a tall, slightly stooped old man with a beard dressed in worn, patchy clothes. The porch light wasn't on and the sun had risen on the opposite side of the house so she couldn't see much, but she saw enough of him to know exactly what was going on. With a sigh, she shoved her irritation away, dragged her compassion to the surface and opened the door.

"Good morning, miss," he rasped, wheezed then turned and coughed into his elbow. It was a prolonged fit and sounded dry to her ears. "Does Roux Forhan live here?"

"Yes, but she's away," she took a half-step back, the woman's warnings about contagious diseases played a loop in her head. "Would you like to come in? It's chilly this morning and I was just about to make some coffee."

He frowned, looked at the numbers lining the door, and mouthed something to himself. She waited patiently as he held an internal conversation. He came to a conclusion then shook his head and gave her a soft, almost familiar smile.

"If you would," he forced out the rest of the sentence through a series of coughs smothered in the crook of his arm. "B-be so ki-k-cough-kind."

At least he was polite despite having some sort on respiratory infection. Lumi knew dozens of perfectly healthy people who could take a few pointers from him.

She led him to the kitchen, careful not to walk too quickly or too far from him in case the fever he was clearly nursing caused him to faint, and set a pot to brew. She noted that even with his slightly defensive posture, he was well over a foot taller than her with some definition to his arms that hinted at an active past- a Huntsman who'd gone feral? A construction worker down on his luck? Well whatever he had been, now he was just a slightly out of it, sick old man warming up in the comfort of the Forhan's house.

She puttered around the kitchen, putting together a simple breakfast of toast and instant oatmeal, and felt his sharp gaze settle on her almost like a physical weight. (That was one point in favor of the Huntsman theory.) She set the food in front of him then grabbed a pair of mugs and the fresh carafe of coffee. He waited for her to sit and serve them both, his coffee much weaker than hers, before he thanked her for the meal and slowly dug in.

Wow, she hadn't seen that level of manners from anyone in- well, ever. Nerves a little less strung from the show of politeness, she sipped at her drink and let the heat drive away her small headache. Judging from what she could see past his un-kempt facial hair, he hadn't been homeless long; not with straight, even teeth like his, lacking any gaps, cracks or chips.

There were faint callouses on his long fingers, and he tore his toast into smaller pieces before eating it. She dragged her attention to her own food before he could call her out for staring at him, and they passed the time in silence.

Unbeknownst to her, he spent the time observing her too, though far less obviously. He- whichever one of the "he"s he was- had been around too long to get caught in this, especially by someone as young as she was.

There was something familiar about the set of her mouth and the way she swirled her mug three times before drinking, but he couldn't place it. Did he, or one of the other he's, know her? Perhaps he knew her mother and she had similar mannerisms? He, the current he, had been a teacher of some sort, but what sort of teacher would know how his student took her coffee- whole milk and brown sugar? It was worrisome.

She was clearly a Huntress; Roux would let no one less capable of defending themselves watch his (her- Rue? No, Roux- hi- _her?_ ) house. On top of that, she was wearing a green robe he knew signified her as a Healer, but that likely belonged to the woman of the house (Roux was happily unmarried- but he- no, _she_ ) and not her.

His hunger pangs died down and the chill left his bones, both warm and fed for the first time in a long while- on his long trek to the city he usually only got one or the other. His head ached from the fact that there were too many "him"s in his mindspace, but that was his curse and as he sipped the rest of his coffee, even that pain faded.

"Would you like to shower?" the young woman asked as a wavy blue lock fell from her bun. "I'm sure I can find some clippers and a razor if you'd like to shave as well." She tucked it behind her ear and he got the impression that she usually wore a clip on her left side (why did he know that?).

"That would be lovely," his coughing had subsided but he knew it wouldn't be long until it started back up again. A shower would help him clear his chest further, which would hopefully grant him a bit more time. "Thank you."

She led him to a small, grey and red bathroom (the same color scheme as the living room and kitchen, he noted, sleek and simple) and explained how the shower worked. There was an anti-scalding measure built into the water heater, typical of an old house like this (but wasn't it a new feature?), so if the water shut off he need only pull the cord beside the showerhead to get it back. There were fresh towels in the linen closet just behind the door, along with the usual supplies, including a two-in-one shampoo/conditioner (something he knew he disliked and wasn't sure why).

Lumi left with the promise of getting one of Rue's med-kits to check his lungs when he was done. After she dragged the clunky, almost too full case from the pantry to the table, she hurried upstairs to change into clothes more fit for company. A comfy, grey cheongsam top and capri-length leggings were easy to move around in, and if the man (she hadn't gotten his name and promised to do so at the first opportune moment) ended up vomiting on her (it had happened before) she wouldn't be too torn up about having to change again.

She cleaned their mess from breakfast, making sure to disinfect everything lest she catch whatever he had, and fixed herself another cup of coffee before she ventured to Roux's bathroom to borrow an old pair of clippers. He had a much nicer, newer set Rue had given him for the new year as a not-so-subtle hint for him to "shave that dead possum" off his face, but he'd only laughed and trimmed a quarter inch off the ends.

The memory of Rue telling her the story over an afternoon of updating medical files warmed her heart and made her miss her own siblings- was Ash old enough to grow facial hair yet or did he still just have little individual hairs that popped up out of nowhere? She had wanted to tease him about it, but hopefully Nocte would take up the mantle; she was good at being just the right level of annoying.

She pushed the thoughts away and grabbed some shaving cream along with a pack of disposable razors. When the man was done and dry, he poked his damp head out and she handed over the small bundle. Another soft, familiar smile crossed his face and she could almost place his eyes but then he closed the door and the gentle buzz of the clippers kicked on.

Her coffee was still warm when she remembered it, and even in her half-aware state she'd made it just right. With a blissed out sigh, she leaned against the counter and sipped at her drink. Her mind got away from her in the quiet, but when the bathroom door opened and brought with it the sharp sent of shaving cream, she blinked back into focus.

His footsteps sounded closer until he was at the doorway with a clean-shaven face and a thanks on his lips- a thanks that was cut short by the fact that Lumi screamed and chucked her mug at him. It shattered against the wall when he ducked away but some of the splatter got his shoulder.

"WHAT THE FUCK," she twisted her hands in her hair. "I CAN'T FUCKING BELIEVE THIS."

He frowned and, taking a defensive position in case she decided to throw more things, asked, "Do I know you? Or rather, do you know me?"

"Yes I fucking know you!" she spat and reached for a weapon that wasn't there. "You're the Headmaster at Beacon and you're dead- you're _supposed_ to be dead!"

"It appears that is very much not the case," he quipped then reconsidered his words when her entire arm lit with aura. "Ah, before you attack, would you mind telling me my name?"

Her eyes narrowed. "You're going with amnesia as your cover story?"

"Well no," he blinked owlishly. "I do have amnesia to some degree- or I must if I don't recall you despite the fact that we must have had some past interactions that soured our relationship this much. What was that, by the way? It feels salient to know."

Something twisted in her features as she glared at a spot over her shoulder but then her arm stopped glowing and she sighed heavily. "Your name was- _is_ \- Ozpin. You were the Headmaster at Beacon Academy in the Kingdom of Vale until the end of the Vytal Tournament last year, when a terrorist attack led to the fall of the CCT and the school. You were declared missing, then presumed dead when no one could find your body after extensive search."

"Ah," the words rushed over him like static. Something in his head tried to connect with, to stick to that description but it was difficult, like trying to hold water in his palms.

"Before that, you were my… supervisor, I think was the term?" she frowned, less harsh and disgusted than earlier. "I interned for Doctor Oobleck and you the summer between my first and second year. I did a lot of things, but you were most interested in-"

"The De Sena journals," he breathed as the lone piece fell into place. "You put ghost pepper into my cocoa supply at the start of the semester after that- why?"

"You can remember that but not- look, it doesn't matter," she made a cutting motion with one hand. "Sit down, I'll try and fix your lungs then you can _go_."

"Go?" he took the seat opposite the white case with a red plus sign on it. "I didn't know my own name until now, where will I go?"

"I don't care," she snapped and yanked open a drawer to withdraw a pair of nitrile gloves. "Anywhere that's not here."

"It seems unfair to be angry with me over something I can't remember doing," he tutted. "Especially when you won't tell me what it was. Were we only ever antagonistic to each other?"

"No," she threw herself into her seat and busied herself with pulling out an assortment of things he faintly remembered the names of. "Open your mouth and say 'ah'."

Despite the irritation written clearly across her face and throughout her frame, she didn't jab the popsicle stick into the back of his throat and held his jaw with a deceptive gentleness. His ears buzzed as her fingers grew warm, then the ringing quieted and she withdrew her hands.

"No concussion, no throat or ear infections," she listed sharply. "Your lungs, however, are fucked with something." Without giving him enough time to process her short diagnosis or charming language, she stood and slid the buds of the stethoscope into her ears. "Turn sideways in the chair, and when I tell you go, breathe in as deeply as you can and hold it."

He suppressed the reflex to strike out at her when she lifted the hem of his shirt and placed the cold metal to his back, but it was a near thing. She must have known because her hand grew heavy and warm where it was on his shoulder- an implicit warning not to try anything.

"Go," she said.

He did as she instructed, or tried to. When he breathed in the harsh coughs that had been handily taken care of by the combined force of caffeine and a hot shower returned with a vengeance. Bent in half, his lungs struggled to fill and his heart squeezed painfully in his chest but then a rush of warmth opened his airways back up. Gasping, he felt the side of her palm smooth up and down his back along both halves of his ribs, yet when he turned to glance at her she faced away with a bored expression.

Aches he had long since grown used to faded to nothingness against that tangible warmth until he was nothing more than a tired old man leaned halfway against the girl's side. She prodded him into sitting up and resumed her check-up, voice much less sharp than before though by no means soft. Though it burned, he managed to hold his breath and barely cough on the exhale.

She fixed his shirt absent-mindedly while he wheezed and grabbed another tool, a thermometer that went into his ear and beeped shrilly. She hummed at the result and discarded the used plastic cover then pulled a paper mask from a box and handed it to him.

"I'm not sure what, exactly, you have since it's quite clear that I'm not a doctor," she motioned to her outfit as though clothes could prove or disprove a medical degree. "But there is _something_ in your lungs. Probably pneumonia, judging from Rue's 'quick diagnoses for dummies' list, but I couldn't tell you for sure."

He nodded. "Can you fix it?" his voice had regained its raspy quality from his lungs' attempt at turning themselves inside out.

"Eh," she frowned. "Maybe. You'd be better off going to an actual doctor and getting x-rays done."

"How?" he drawled. "I am, by your account, very much dead to the world." Any salary he collected or savings he had must have been distributed according to his will by now.

"Go to your bank and tell them the good news," she deadpanned and started to clean. "I'm sure they have a process for MIA Huntsmen that are no longer missing."

"I'm sure they do, but like you've said," he stressed. "I was _Beacon's_ Headmaster. My bank is likely in Vale, and even if there is a branch here in Mistral, I sincerely doubt that with the CCT network down they'll have anything I can use to prove my identity. Further, how can I answer any security questions they pose if I needed to have _you_ tell me both my name and former occupation- two things that are so obviously integral to my identity?"

He really wanted her to punch him in the teeth, didn't he? Lumi could see no other reason for why he tried to impose his sorry case on her.

"You are a grown man," she ground out. "What happens to you is none of my concern."

"Come now, have some sympathy for an old sick man," he clicked his tongue. "Rue didn't teach you how to heal without making you take a Healer's oath, did she?" Rue was the Healer Forhan, and her twin brother Roux was a Huntsman- that much seemed clear now that he said it.

"Don't try and invoke the Healer's Oath on me, Mr. I Can't Remember Jack All," she hissed and her violet eyes flashed black.

His eyes lit with malevolent glee- hit a nerve, did he? The only thing to do would be to press on. "The Clause of Neutrality requires you to help any person in need of aid, regardless of allegiance or standing, does it not?"

She put away the med-kit with more force than necessary.

"Ah, you are withholding treatment so I'll do what you want- a clear violation of the two Clauses of Aid."

"You can recall three of the sub-clauses to the Healer's Oath, but not your name or any way to prove your being alive? Get absolutely fucked, _Headmaster_ Ozpin." She threw her gloves in the trash and when she turned around at the sound of a chair scraping, she nearly screamed.

"I humbly request sanctuary in this house, merciful healer," he was on his knees, left palm pressed to the ground and right fist on his thigh, but the sly grin on his face was anything but supplicating. "I lay my life in your kind hands, if you will have it." He bent his neck _just so_ and suppressed the cough building in his throat.

"Get _up_ you damned snake," the shadows bloomed to life behind her, a writhing, depthless void. "I'll fix your lungs _just get up_!"

"You wouldn't," he couldn't suppress the ache in his chest any longer and dug the face mask out of his pocket to cover his mouth while he coughed up whatever lived in his lungs. "Would you deny a clear act of supplication?"

"I already said I'd heal you, what more do you want?!" with a wave of her hand the kitchen floor disappeared from beneath them.

He felt a chill pry into his bones, his soul, and heart. "Sanctuary."

There was a moment when the whole world pulsed, then the dark receded in a blink of an eye and left him dizzy.

"Fine, what the fuck ever," she sighed. Her irises were still black but the shadows remained in place. "You can stay here a week- in return I want your solemn vow that you will neither attempt nor plot to do harm to me or mine, now or in the future. That includes further attempts to manipulate me, because you are _not_ subtle."

He could be, he knew, though he barely knew his own name. But irritating the tiny slip of a girl in front of him seemed like a poor choice, not the least because she had initially taken him in without knowing a thing about him and had been so kind then. If he'd kept the beard and not trimmed his hair, she likely would have continued to help without her rough turn in attitude.

"I so vow," he bowed at the waist once and stood. His head swam and when he nearly toppled over she shoved a chair at him. He collapsed into it with a wheeze.

"Your pneumonia's worse than I thought," she murmured to herself. "Would you happen to know what clothing size you wear?"

His response was another wheeze followed by a coughing fit.

Rather than wait for an answer that might never come, she grabbed a measuring tape from the study and measured his leg from knee to ankle. She multiplied the number by four on her Scroll, then did the same to her own leg to check the accuracy. Unfortunately for her, her rough estimate was correct as her number placed her height about five foot four (an inch taller than her actual height) and his at roughly six and a half feet.

He was disgustingly tall. She set aside the indignation of being surrounded by giants at every turn and calculated his inseam. The average person had a measurement four inches less than half their height, so that put him at… a still ridiculous number. His waist, from the quick lasso and tug she did, was also an astounding number, but he'd presumably been homeless for a year and he was never all that heavy to begin with.

She would have made him stand so she could take his actual measurements, as her current summer job had given her the skills and nerve to manhandle strangers, but as honor bound to help him as she was, there was no way she was putting her hands anywhere near his dick unless he managed to get stabbed directly in the femoral artery. Even then, she might consider it a solution to her pushy ex-Headmaster problem and wash her hands of it.

Except that a glance at the hallway wall revealed her smashed coffee cup and Rue's framed copy of the Florencian Oath, the latter of which _clearly_ stated that she had to help as long as it was within her power. She frowned at it and grabbed a rag to clean up her mess.

Why couldn't she ever have a simple Saturday?

* * *

 **A/N:** I hope you lovely readers enjoyed!

I got the idea for this while writing up the fifth version of a sequel to Cobwebs and Crows... that story's giving me such grief but every iteration is bringing me closer and closer to something I can be happy with. Don't be surprised if something like this (but with Oscar in place of Ozpin) ends up in there, I tend to reuse a lot of the same concepts because the path is already so well-trodden in my mind.

Also, I LOVE Ozpin and he doesn't get enough love in fanfic so expect another story centered around him in the future. The more of his backstory that we see from Volume 6, the more ideas I get about him, so it might turn into a series of one-shots posted under one title... LMAO who am I kidding my brain can't seem to trim a story to a one-shot it'll end up as like, 2-5 chapters per idea but w/e he deserves it.

Leave a review if you liked the chapter- or you have any recommendations about a good Ozpin centered fic b/c I am dying for some more fic.


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N:** Long chapter ahead. Please review!

* * *

The clothes Lumi returned with were decidedly not to his taste (what were his tastes?) but they were soft and, he assumed, cheap. They also fit, though there was one problem…

"Where is my shirt?" he poked his head out of the guest bedroom.

"You don't need one," her violet eyes were bored and flat, unlike her earlier fire.

"I may be an amnesiac but I'm quite sure that a full outfit includes a top," he argued.

She sighed. "Congrats, you know what clothes are. However, you're forgetting that _I'm_ going to work on your lungs, and _I_ say you don't need it."

"If this is your attempt at humiliating me, it's a poor one," he told her and narrowed of his eyes in suspicion.

She turned on him like a weather vane, slowly but with purpose. "Would you rather be strapped face down to a massage table with your ass in the air and one modesty towel? Because that's the way Rue recommends."

The distaste on his face matched hers in intensity. "No thank you."

"Alright then, stop arguing with me and go sit on the edge of the bed," she bent down to scoop up the bucket of supplies.

"This feels incredibly inappropriate," he huffed but did as he was told.

"Don't worry," she crawled onto the space behind him. "It gets worse."

With a little direction, he was arranged properly into place, though not without a great deal of sulking. He did _not_ want her knees pressed to his hips, or her hands on his shirtless back, or even to be on the same bed, but without an ability to seek a proper doctor his only alternative was the massage table and no matter how his stomach rolled at the impropriety of _this_ , he knew it to be the better deal.

"Alright," her voice was soft, whether to calm him or her, she wasn't sure. "There are waters to your right on the night stand. This _will_ burn, and you will likely vomit, sweat, and/or bleed. If the treatment gets to be too much, squeeze my left knee and try not to throw up on the blankets. I promise I will stop entirely at any point if you request it, but you need to recognize that if I don't get through a full round it will only add to the time it takes later to heal you. Do you, Ozpin, consent to these terms?"

"I do," he dreaded it already.

"Great, take a deep breath and count to ten."

He did, and when he got to eight he felt her aura slide past the muscles of his back into the soft tissue. Her hands prickled where they rested against his skin- the fire dust she'd painted onto her palms, he figured. There was an initial wave of heat, like hot cocoa on a cold day (was this him very fond of the drink?) then it cooled to his normal body temperature.

He could feel her wrap around his chest and open up his airways (blessed air) with the same delicate touch as earlier. The heat started slowly, a simmer, in the bottom of his torso that curled _just so_. It crept upwards like ivy, threaded itself around every rib then _sunk_ into the chambers of his lungs. The air was pushed out of him in a whuff before he inhaled deeply and drew it back.

He felt her aura pulse in him like a second heartbeat until it synched with his own and he could no longer tell the difference. Her palms, too, felt like a part of him but then-

Fire.

He wheezed and she murmured something soothing he couldn't make out, her voice a mile away. His lower ribs burned, a brand to his skin (that had happened before, hadn't it?) and he shot forward with a deep, hacking cough. His throat protested, closed with fierce denial before his body overrode itself and the horrible muck came up and out anyways.

Lumi kept her hands pressed to the headmaster's back even as he heaved, sweated, and cursed out every ounce of agony stored in him. His aura flared like a wild thing, gnashing and clawing and biting, but hers had been honed to be smooth and unassuming even when her patient was near death so she kept steady and the attack flowed right over her.

He wasn't fighting her anyways. Like an over active immune response, his aura was screaming an alert at itself but finding nothing to protect against or heal and panicking all the more for it. If she had been good enough to do this without the lowest grade fire dust- well, Rue would be out of a job for one, but also his body wouldn't be freaking out so bad. Unfortunately for them both, this was the best she could do.

She pushed through the last, painful seconds, then gasped in relief when her Scroll chimed an alarm. Without wasting a moment, she dismissed the alarm and scrambled off the bed to rinse her hands in the pre-prepared bowl waiting on the vanity. Ozpin was still busy hacking up his insides when she finished and moved on to wringing a wet rag to wipe him down. He shivered and twitched at the room temperature water, but at her feel of her hand on his shoulder he calmed.

One of the problems with healing was that it left an impression of the healer's aura on the aura of the patient, and so when the round of treatment was over, the patient was left with a feeling of incompleteness. Most times it went away after an hour, but for a novice like her, it could take three hours so she pressed a nighttime cold and flu pill into Ozpin's palm and urged him to take it while she wiped the blood from his nose.

He listened, thank Oum, and managed to find the energy reserves to slip on his shirt before she laid him on his side and drew a thin blanket over his shivering form. Anything heavier and he would probably combust. She folded a smaller wet washcloth and plastered it to his forehead, then carefully grabbed the bucket of disgusting things and carried it to the bathroom so she could dump it down the drain.

Cognizant of the fact that only one of them could walk down the stairs without splitting their skull open, she grabbed her products from the upstairs bathroom and headed to the guest bath to shower and disinfect every inch of her skin.

 **-[-]-**

He woke to a familiar (unfamiliar- no, familiar, but not-) pair of hands tilting his head to the side. There was a beep and the hands- no the woman to whom the hands belonged (not a woman: a girl, she was so young)- muttered something. His eyelids pressed together then sluggishly fell open to violet.

A sleeping instinct curled inside him, ready to spring up and knock the intruder away, but then it fell back as warmth buzzed at his cheek. She was no threat; she was helping; he had asked her to.

She sighed above him and laid a cool weight across his entire body- a blanket? He turned and she said something else, something comforting, and left. He fell back asleep for a while then his body's urgings woke him again and he stumbled to the bathroom.

This- this was not his bathroom and if he found out that Qrow tried to "redecorate" his space one more time-

Who was Qrow?

Oz- no; Ozpin, yes; Ozpin shook his head and splashed some water on his face. It did a little to clear his muddled thoughts, but he was still confused about who "Qrow" was. He pushed the matter aside and evaluated his appearance in the mirror; that was important to him, perhaps?

Naturally grey unkempt hair, a straight nose and sharp amber eyes, green t-shirt –

T-shirt? No, he didn't usually wear those, not this him. Where had it come from? Oh, but he'd been sleeping. Maybe his pajama set was in the wash? Yes, that had to have been it. That or someone had torched his wardrobe; he would have never chosen black basketball shorts for himself. Matter resolved, he stepped away from the mirror and out of the bathroom- right into the familiar woman from earlier.

"Oof!" she said on impact, like a squeaky toy in the mouth of a lazy dog.

He scooted back and titled his head in an evaluation of her. She hadn't been wearing that earlier, had she? Heavens, she was so young too; was this his daughter?

"I'm not your kid," she snapped. "And my name's Lumi, not that you bothered to ask before you went and demanded sanctuary."

Lumi, Lumi, Lumi… star something? Something with a star? This wasn't the first time a familial relationship had been mistaken about them.

He blinked and found himself back in bed, the woman- girl- _Lumi, you scatterbrained dolt_ \- Lumi carefully covered him in blankets again.

The third time he woke he was thankfully more aware than either previous attempt and therefore didn't speak his thoughts or get confused about who Lumi was. (Qrow was still a mystery, unfortunately, though something about him liked the vague mental image the name brought with it.) He dragged off the suffocating covers, shivered, and tucked the lighter blanket about his shoulders. It was warm with his body heat, but not as warm as the skin on his back where Lumi's hands had gone.

He stood and slowly made his way downstairs by folding over the banister for stability, feeling more and more his age (whatever that was) and desperately missing his cane. When he made it to the foot of the stairs, he sat and let his poor lungs seize for a fit.

Despite the obvious sounds of his pain, and his none-too-subtle journey out of the room to the main level, Lumi was nowhere to be found. Half his mind was made up to think her cruel enough to let him suffer, her dear old Headmaster who'd watched over her and made sure her mother was banned from campus, but the other half (aside from being very confused) was kinder in its opinion. Perhaps she was taking a nap, or in the bathroom, or outside in the garden. There was a lovely garden in the back, which must have taken a lot of care, thought it wasn't as nice as-

The door opened and in walked Lumi with an armful of bags. Some of them were clearly groceries, but the rest were hard to tell. She placed the majority on the table and chairs but kept one slung over her shoulder. The bottom had the hard edges of a box, but also the soft squish of something fabric on the side. He didn't get to think on much longer, because she turned and startled at the sight of him.

"What are you doing out of bed?" she demanded, not harshly. "It's going to be such a pain to get you back upstairs… well, I guess you can go lay on the couch for now. I'll bring you something to eat if you're up to it."

She spoke like he wasn't perfectly aware of what was going on and capable of making sound decisions, which _was_ mostly true but he was still a touch offended by it.

"Please," he rasped and coughed again, too worn for his usual flowery language. "Thank you."

She nodded and helped him to the living room, deceptively strong for her size and lithe build, though she was a Huntress so maybe it wasn't that surprising. After all, Ruby was equally tiny and wielded a scythe twice her size- Ruby?

He jolted when the hem of his shirt lifted and twisted to look at Lumi over his shoulder. She paid him no mind, hummed about something then placed two glowing fingers to the still warm spots of his back. The heat faded and his chest eased, which he was grateful for, though he was more grateful when she lowered his shirt and left the room.

Their previous relationship didn't excuse the amount of times she'd invaded his personal space, but their current one of patient and healer did and that was… annoying. As indulgent as this him was (was he?) he wasn't comfortable with such constant _closeness_.

He told her as much after he'd drained half a cup of thin vegetable soup, which earned him an odd look.

"Headmaster, I'm not sure you realize how close to drowning on dry land you were," she said with a frown. "When I cleared your lungs, I could see how filled every air-sac was and the fact that you were standing, much less walking around and wandering Mistral, was pretty much a miracle. Most people would have curled up and waited for death at that point."

He blinked owlishly then placed a hand to his chest. It was true that it had been hard to breathe, and was still difficult now (yet also noticeably easier), but that close to death?

"As soon as your lungs are clear your aura should go back to normal too," she continued. "Or be well on its way."

"Is there something wrong with my aura?" he drank another mouthful of soup.

"It's… blocked," Lumi swirled her cup. "More than that, with how dense it is and how experienced you are, nothing short of a biological weapon specifically engineered for you should have ever made you sick. The fact that you've got pneumonia is a pretty clear sign that something's wrong even without a check-up."

"I wasn't aware," none of the other "him"s had a clue either until she said so. Good health had always been a given, not some superhuman feat. Only the first him, and any that followed who lived in poor conditions, had gotten sick. But those other selves had lived the sort of life that if the misery of their circumstances hadn't taken them first, a well tied rope-

"The mind-body-soul connection isn't exactly common knowledge or all that well understood," she bit into a breadstick. "Doctor De Sena had some thoughts written in her journals about it, which is why I know. Rue would probably know too, but then again, she knows everything."

"You seem very fond of her," he chose to focus on that. "This Rue. I seem to recall that she and her brother were… not the gentlest of folks."

"They're blunt to the point of rude, but Rue took me from less than sub-par to decent at healing in under a year and offered to pay me to house-sit for them just so I wouldn't have to-" she bit her tongue. "That doesn't matter. You barely know who you are, much less who I am. Eat your food."

He wanted to press, but she grabbed her dishes and left before he could figure out what to ask. He sighed and continued to pick at his meal, appetite gone.

She returned half an hour later, in pajamas, and handed him a tablet. He turned it over his hands with a clear sense of familiarity.

"I'm going to lay down, so either I can take you back upstairs now or you can do it on your own later," she motioned to the clear blue screen. "You can keep this for the night so you don't die of boredom, but for the love of Oum erase your internet history and wipe it with disinfectant before you give it back."

He reared up in offense, "I would never-"

"I don't want to hear it," she sighed. "Are you staying down here or not?"

Rude little thing, wasn't she? "I'll stay."

"Alright, good night," she waved over her shoulder.

He returned the sentiment and stretched out on the couch. Well, she'd given him an entire night alone with a tablet- time to figure out what had happened to him, the Ozpin him, at the Fall of Beacon and the events leading up to that.

 **-[-]-**

Sometimes Ozpin really hated himself. The him before the memory loss (and aura block?) had been incredibly secretive and there was little to nothing to be found no matter how much he searched. Of course, he could have pinned the lack of information on the lack of the CCT network, but in his increasingly desperate wade through countless pages, he just _knew_ that there was nothing else to find.

The extent of the information about him was thus: a list of MIA or KIA Hunters from the Fall of Beacon, most of whom he assumed were students and ached over, with his ID. An article printed about his taking the Headmaster position at Beacon when he was thirty five- the youngest headmaster in the history of any of the four Hunter Academies. Another article about the Atlas-Vale collaboration in archiving Doctor De Sena's works that mentioned him, dated a handful of years back, then one more about the Vytal Festival and associated Tournament a year ago.

The lack of information was good, in a sense, because it meant few people knew about him or his habits which resented a sort of security, but for an amnesiac (as he currently was) it was as Qrow (?) would say, a pain in the ass.

More of a pain was the fact that Lumi refused to tell him about their shared past except for tiny, inconsequential things. She also refused to let him make his own food, and almost shoved him out to the kitchen when she stumbled in, half awake, to the sight of him at the stove.

"Let's not pull a Typhoid Mary now," she grumbled and sprayed disinfectant on the countertop he'd been leaning against.

He scowled from under his face mask and drew the blanket tighter around his shoulders. "I used all proper precautions."

She side-eyed him with disbelief but said nothing. The oatmeal, at least, was safe to eat and she served him before pointedly washing some apples and cutting them into slices for herself.

He didn't remember her as being a germaphobe.

"I'm not," she rebutted and he realized that he'd spoken his thoughts aloud again. "But you are incredibly contagious right now and I don't want to take a chance that the strain you picked up is severe enough to infect me."

Well, he couldn't refute that logic.

She placed a few apple slices on a napkin and passed it over as a peace offering then they fell into a companionable silence. When the coffeemaker beeped that it was finished brewing, she made their cups (his much weaker) and brought it to the table.

"Do you have any plans for the day?" he asked.

"Another treatment for you at eleven, then lunch while you sleep and maybe some laundry," she ticked off a finger for every task. "I also need to pick up more clothes for you- any requests?"

"I would love my suit back," he sighed. "But I suppose I can content myself with a pair of slacks and a button down."

"It's summer," she raised a brow.

"An all-cotton button down then," he bit.

"As you wish, Headmaster," she deadpanned. "You always did dress nicely- if nicely meant having six nearly identical suits."

"How would you know?" he sipped at his coffee with a frown.

"Bran- _Qrow_ broke into your room and 'borrowed' one," she made air quotes around the word. "Then he had it hemmed to be half an inch too short in the sleeves. He told me about it afterwards, and for some reason the number stuck."

"I presume this Qrow is closer in age to me than to you?" he cocked his head. A blurry image appeared in his mind's eye of dingy bars, meetings held long after most people had gone to bed, and dark feathers.

"Yes…?" she furrowed her brow. "I figured you would have remembered him if nothing else. He was something like your right hand."

"I remember the barista from a coffee shop I frequented, but unfortunately I can't recall anybody close to me with detail. I do know he was important, alongside a blonde woman and severe man in a military uniform- but who they are, what positions they held, and how we became friends remains a frustrating blank."

"The woman is Professor Goodwitch, I think," she told him after a moment, a somber set to her features. "I don't know about the man- as Headmaster you knew a lot of important people and when the Vytal Festival happened there was a lot of Atlesian soldiers around. It might be General Ironwood? You can find more online; Goodwitch handled most of the press for the school and the General is also the Headmaster of Atlas Academy."

"James was the one to propose the cross-kingdom conservation project," the certainty settled in him like a cat in a patch of sunlight.

She shrugged- that was outside her realm of expertise. "I can tell you about Br- Qrow, but it's not a lot. I didn't spend a lot of time with him when he was with you."

"Because of our disagreements?" he prodded.

She ignored him by taking a sip of her coffee. At his sigh (petulant girl!) she set down her mug and folded her hands in front of her. She made him wait a drawn out second before she spoke.

"Qrow Branwen was one of the members of Team STRQ when he went to Beacon," she threaded her fingers together. "You were the Headmaster then too, and you took a shine to his team. After a while, you became friends- best friends from the way he talked though he'd probably never call it that. Later on, you were the one to encourage him to become a teacher at Signal. During the Festival he started a fight in the school courtyard because someone was sh- was disparaging your name."

"He uses a scythe, doesn't he?" the man in his head was clearer, but also murkier. Parts, tiny details had been clarified as though painted with a hyper-realistic brush but the overall form had clouded.

She nodded. "I'll try to find a picture for you. For now, try to eat a little more."

He grimaced at the thought of another treatment but there was wisdom in her words. Even if he would eventually empty his stomach until there was nothing left but bile, the more nutrients his body could wring out of the food now, the quicker he would recover later.

She excused herself from the table and retreated upstairs to dress for the day. When she came back down, she measured his shoulders and arms while standing on the couch then left by stepping into a patch of shadows. There was something familiar about that, connected to Qrow and rooftops, but no matter how he felt around for the memory like a child pressing their tongue to a lost tooth, he couldn't figure it out.

With a sigh, he pulled out the tablet once again. Unable to exercise without passing out or practice with his cane (and he did have a cane, knew that for certain) it seemed that he had nothing better to do than look up old friends.

 **-[-]-**

Ozpin's second treatment went smoother than the first and while he still passed out afterwards, he didn't sleep for six hours. What seemed like a stroke of good fortune (his small but noticeable recovery) was in fact misery. The hour rest had been good to his body but his soul twinged with phantom pains and that drove him out of bed and down the stairs, only to stop at the foot of them and stare wordlessly at the woman on the couch.

Lumi paid him no mind, if she even noticed he was there, and mouthed the words to a song as she grabbed a towel, shook it out, and folded it with precision borne of long practice. Without conscious direction, he found himself crossing the space to stand behind and a little to the side of her. He waved a hand to grab her attention and she turned with a tilt of her head.

"Yes?"

He tried to find the words to describe what was wrong with him, the cold ache he felt both everywhere and nowhere at the same time, but the best that came out was a pitiful "my aura" with a frown.

She nodded, like it made sense (it sure as hell didn't to him, to any of the "him"s, and he was quite frustrated at the sensation) then motioned to the armchair some feet away. He sat and she resumed folding laundry.

For twenty minutes.

"Miss Lumi," he said as respectfully as he could.

"Yes?" she responded with the same casual, barely interested uptick in her tone.

"Would you happen to know why my aura feels as though I've lost a limb?"

She glanced at him and grabbed a shirt. "Yes."

He was not going to throw a fit over this, he wasn't. This him was a grown man with _patience_ and decades of life experience with situations more testing than this. "And that reason would be…?"

She pursed her lips and sighed but didn't respond.

" _Miss Lumi_ ," he almost snapped.

"If you're going to take that tone you can figure it out yourself," she bit and stacked several folded towels beside a pile of what he assumed were his new clothes. "How much do you remember about aura?"

"Not enough to know whatever this is," he laced his fingers together in his lap and resisted the urge to shake her by the shoulders.

Another sigh. "So I'm not a great Healer- I'm technically not a Healer at all," she waved a lazy hand with a flourish. "And when I cleared your lungs, my aura left a sort of 'imprint' on yours. It's not permanent, but from the level of engagement and the amount of time I spent burning the infection out of your lungs, you're going to be stuck with that needy sensation for the next hour or so."

"And you neglected to inform me of this fact beforehand because…?" He was a fifty three year old man and he _was not going to throw a fit_.

"I expected you to sleep through it," she said simply and grabbed a laundry basket. "Most people wouldn't have been able to get out of bed yet, much less use the stairs without stopping every few steps."

He scowled. "Is there any way to alleviate this… imprint?" He refused to call it an ache or longing out loud even if it was the best descriptor he could think of.

"Sort of," she loaded the clothes into the basket. "Which finger do you like least?"

He reared back. "I beg your pardon?"

"I can make a temporary ring of my aura," she lit a band around one finger as a demonstration. "But the only way it won't immediately dissolve is if it numbs everything past that point." They could also cuddle until it wore off, but she sure as hell wasn't going to tell him that.

He glanced at his hands then at her. "Which do you suggest?"

"Non-dominant ring or middle finger," she tucked a strand behind her ear (the motion itched his memory). "Or you could tough it out."

"I prefer not to, thank you," he told her bluntly and held his left hand out towards her, palm up.

She shrugged and wrapped her fingers around his. A line of tension left his shoulders at the touch, then a sense of completeness nestled in the pit of his being with the flare of her aura.

"There you go," she picked the basket back up. "It should wear off in half an hour, so try not to mess with it."

She climbed the stairs and left him to marvel at the cool-warm sensation. He could still feel the rest of his hand, and curl his fingers into a fist, but the top half of his middle finger refused to respond unless he consciously focused on it.

How interesting.

 **-[-]-**

Lumi was calmly chopping potatoes for dinner when Ozpin stumbled into the kitchen, gasping and pale.

"You jumped off the roof in your third year," he panted. "Qrow stopped you. He took you to meet me that same year, on a field trip with your class."

She sliced her finger to the bone. "WHAT?"

"You disagreed with my decision to let Miss Rose into Beacon, that was why you tampered with my hot cocoa," he wheezed then stopped to cover his mouth as a fierce fit scrapped his lungs.

"Sit down before you die, you idiot!" She snapped and hastily wrapped her hand in a dish towel before shoving him into a chair.

There was a manic smile on his face as he coughed up a splatter of blood. "I remember."

"No shit," she pulled his arms above his head and suddenly noticed how sweaty he was. "What the hell were you doing to get like _this_?!"

"The ring," he inhaled deeply, coughed on the exhale. "It's a block- you said I had a block, did you not?"

She left him at the table to tend to her hand at the sink. "I didn't say to hurt yourself trying to undo it!" He had teeth marks along his lower lip and bloody crescents in the flesh of his palms, not to mention the nosebleed and whatever other bullshit he'd done to his insides by straining his already weak body.

"But I remember, Miss Hazelwood," his eyes were fever-bright. "I remember everything- like the fact that I'm supposed to meet Qrow at the Black Cat Bar on the fifth level at six."

"You have pneumonia and you want to go out drinking?!" she shouted.

"No, it wouldn't be to drink," he denied and stood, dropping his arms. "He's expecting me, you see; he has my cane."

"Why are you telling me this?" she sighed, a heavy thing.

"In my current state I am unable to travel great distances," he said and clasped his hands behind his back. "I was wondering if, perhaps-"

"I'm not going to some bar for you," she cut him off. "Besides, he's not even in the city."

That stopped him cold. "How do you know?"

"I tried to call him when I realized who you were," Lumi cleaned the blood at the countertop, hand healed. "It didn't go through. Assuming he has the same number, that means he's not in range of the local towers- and he's not in the city."

"I see," he felt the elation of his newly regained memory crash like a baseball through a window.

She looked over her shoulder at him, her innate well of sympathy warring with their past interactions, then sighed and set down the bloody rag. She crossed the distance and placed a hand to his arm.

"I'm sorry, Headmaster," she said. "I'll let you know if anything changes."

He nodded and quietly excused himself.

* * *

 **A/N:** Being Ozpin is misery lol but I love him so much *heart* (FFN is a coward for taking away less than three from us but I get they're just trying to cut down on spam links so I'll just have to deal w/it)

Anyways, this is the end of this fic though I might add if I get any ideas in the future? Surprisingly there's a lot to be explored with Ozpin and Lumi on account of how I set up her past and his canon backstory. We'll just have to wait and see I suppose.

Please review, I live for fandom interactions, and I hope you lovely readers have a nice day!


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